This wouldn't have happened if only murder were illegal...Razor's Tweet
It was 1988. I traveled to Poland to visit my parents. It was my first visit since they retired to Poland two years earlier. Both my parents and my two uncles (on my dad's side) spent most of the war years in Poland imprisoned in labor camps. Dad was the shortest of his two brothers. (As a child in 1920's Chicago, he was run over by a drunk driver in a truck and both of his femurs were broken.) But, like his brothers, he was a little bad ass. He managed to escape three prison camps, the last time working on a Germany military vehicle delivering sausage to German troops. He jumped out of the rear of the truck, and took off like a jack rabbit never to be caught again . (Before he jumped out of that truck, he threw sausage and jelly on to the town's streets. People were hungry.) My two uncles were released in a prisoner exchange program. Returned to the U.S. and were immediately drafted. Frank was sent to the Pacific theater while Cass remained stateside.
Several weeks after arriving, we took a trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp. We walked through the camp for several hours. I saw tons and tons of human hair behind glass enclosures. Same for eyeglasses. Hundreds of suitcases as well with names marking their previous owners. The "shower" rooms where thousands were gassed. The wall where thousands were executed--Poles, Jews, gays, Gypsies and a host of other poor souls. As we were leaving the camp, I looked back and saw that infamous sign over the entrance that read (translated): "Work Shall Set You Free." It was then when I had to ask myself: This can't be real? But it was. It was also then when I converted to being a conservative. I realized appeasement and political correctness were bullshit. It all to often led to the death of innocents. It took more courage to be politically incorrect.
Skipping to the future, I'm asking myself the same question although the circumstances---not as serious as what concentration camp victims and survivors faced, are certainly as important. Perhaps, in some cases, as with what is happening to the victims of ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, just as brutal and terrorizing.
In the last eight years, we have an American administration that just doesn't appear to be able to tell the truth about most things. We have two political parties that are unable to agree on anything---for the sake of the Republic. We have a political class that continues to exploit and inflame poor communities. We have a presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton who has more scandals in her wake than Richard Nixon. We have men who are trying to convince us they're women and a prominent white women who want us to believe she's black. We've had several mass shootings of innocents that---all too often---open the gates to political pandering instead of focusing on the truth and facts. We have a main stream media that can't stop pretending they are honest, credible and ethical. And while we should mourn those murdered in those mass shootings, where is the outrage for the mass murders committed in our nation's cities each and every day? When will the black community come to terms with this very same slaughter---this holocaust of their own instead of always placing blame on others? In other words, when will we admit that all lives matter? Throughout the world, we've witnessed the promise of "Never Again" transformed to "Over and Over Again."
I can go on with a host of other examples. In all of these and more, we should be asking ourselves: What they hell do we believe in anymore? Who the hell do we believe in anymore? Is anything real? What happened to the truth? Do facts even matter?
Questions I'm certain many of us are having a hard time answering today.
It was 1988. I traveled to Poland to visit my parents. It was my first visit since they retired to Poland two years earlier. Both my parents and my two uncles (on my dad's side) spent most of the war years in Poland imprisoned in labor camps. Dad was the shortest of his two brothers. (As a child in 1920's Chicago, he was run over by a drunk driver in a truck and both of his femurs were broken.) But, like his brothers, he was a little bad ass. He managed to escape three prison camps, the last time working on a Germany military vehicle delivering sausage to German troops. He jumped out of the rear of the truck, and took off like a jack rabbit never to be caught again . (Before he jumped out of that truck, he threw sausage and jelly on to the town's streets. People were hungry.) My two uncles were released in a prisoner exchange program. Returned to the U.S. and were immediately drafted. Frank was sent to the Pacific theater while Cass remained stateside.
Several weeks after arriving, we took a trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp. We walked through the camp for several hours. I saw tons and tons of human hair behind glass enclosures. Same for eyeglasses. Hundreds of suitcases as well with names marking their previous owners. The "shower" rooms where thousands were gassed. The wall where thousands were executed--Poles, Jews, gays, Gypsies and a host of other poor souls. As we were leaving the camp, I looked back and saw that infamous sign over the entrance that read (translated): "Work Shall Set You Free." It was then when I had to ask myself: This can't be real? But it was. It was also then when I converted to being a conservative. I realized appeasement and political correctness were bullshit. It all to often led to the death of innocents. It took more courage to be politically incorrect.
Skipping to the future, I'm asking myself the same question although the circumstances---not as serious as what concentration camp victims and survivors faced, are certainly as important. Perhaps, in some cases, as with what is happening to the victims of ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, just as brutal and terrorizing.
In the last eight years, we have an American administration that just doesn't appear to be able to tell the truth about most things. We have two political parties that are unable to agree on anything---for the sake of the Republic. We have a political class that continues to exploit and inflame poor communities. We have a presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton who has more scandals in her wake than Richard Nixon. We have men who are trying to convince us they're women and a prominent white women who want us to believe she's black. We've had several mass shootings of innocents that---all too often---open the gates to political pandering instead of focusing on the truth and facts. We have a main stream media that can't stop pretending they are honest, credible and ethical. And while we should mourn those murdered in those mass shootings, where is the outrage for the mass murders committed in our nation's cities each and every day? When will the black community come to terms with this very same slaughter---this holocaust of their own instead of always placing blame on others? In other words, when will we admit that all lives matter? Throughout the world, we've witnessed the promise of "Never Again" transformed to "Over and Over Again."
I can go on with a host of other examples. In all of these and more, we should be asking ourselves: What they hell do we believe in anymore? Who the hell do we believe in anymore? Is anything real? What happened to the truth? Do facts even matter?
Questions I'm certain many of us are having a hard time answering today.
